Christmas at Gardens By The Bay!

Dana’s cousins from Australia and Malaysia were here on a short holiday last week and we took the chance to bring all of them to visit Gardens By the Bay!

The organic structure of the Domes is impressive from any angle!

The kids had a blast viewing all the weird and wonderful plants.

Gardens By The Bay is s a mega structure unlike anything else on earth, with three massive gardens (the size of 177 soccer fields) that house thousands of exotic plants from all over the earth. Two giant conservatories ‘The Cloud Forest’ and ‘Flower Dome’ protect millions of dollars worth of trees, flowers and plants, and man-made vertical gardens called ‘Supertrees’ stretch over 150 feet high. This is perhaps Singapore’s most ambitious greening project to date and featured on National Geographic’s Megastructures TV series last year.

This may not be our first visit to the Gardens but we never fail to be amazed by God’s beautiful creations housed here. These are some of our favorite shots from the visit last Thursday.

Beautiful and delicate Calla Lilies.

Symmetrical patterns and shapes in Nature.

Strawberries in Singapore! Colours of the season.

All leaves are green? No!

Daddy calls this shot ‘Fire in the Rain’.

The Gardens are beautifully decorated with these lights with intricate designs.

In conjunction with Christmas and New Year, award-winning landscape designer, Kazuyuki Ishihara (a multiple gold medalist at the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show) has transformed the Flower Dome’s horticultural centerpiece into a whimsical creation (entitled Christmas Sugar Mountain) using everyday edible crops (such as strawberries, pineapples, pumpkins, capsicums and tomatoes). The Gardens look resplendent like an elegant dame adorned with exotic flora all in full bloom!

Creative twist – Not your regular Christmas tree but equally inspirational.

The season’s colours!

Did you ‘spot’ these? – it’s good to get the kids to ‘spot’ interesting patterns on the plants.

Cactus flowers In bloom!

Yellow ‘medallion’ daisies.

The colours of nature never cease to inspire.

A ‘Green’ vehicle…literally. The kids were so amazed!

The Christmas Sugar Mountain display features two characters – a pineapple boy called “Ananas” and a strawberry girl “Berry” who live apart due to their different growing conditions until one day, when they stumbled upon a garden with a special mountain that provides for all their needs. In this paradise of theirs, they build a home and live happily ever after. This display promises to delight both the young and the old. Our guests, young and old were most impressed too with the variety of plants inside the air-conditioned conservatories and we had an enjoyable day out.

To make the outing more engaging, arm the kids with your old digital cameras and give them free reign to snap photographs at The Gardens. It helps to train their power of observation and promotes a keen sense of exploration. The gallery below showcases some of Dana’s masterpieces:

Our Little Photographer in action!

Through Dana’s lens: What’s Christmas without a moving train set?

Through Dana’s lens: Figurines to add the ‘cute’ element – Mr. Pineapple

Through Dana’s lens: Figurines to add the ‘cute’ element – Ms. Strawberry

Through Dana’s lens: Fatal attraction – these beautiful (but carnivorous) plants.

Dana and her cousin Stef appreciating the tiny lovely flowers.

Through Dana’s lens: An attempt at a closeup shot of this purple flower – not too shabby!

Through Dana’s lens: Another closeup shot, a flowering cactus.

Through Dana’s lens: An attempt at a vertical landscape shot of this tall waterfall. We were pleasantly surprised to see how well she captured it!

Through Dana’s lens: the enigmatic stalagmites.

Christmas Sugar Mountain will be on till 5 January 2014. This festive season, take a break from the manic crowds at the malls and escape to The Gardens for a breath of fresh air!